Understanding Differences in Customs and Patterns of Thinking


By Judy Leaver, MA, and Catherine Huynh, MSW


Closing the Gap, Cultural Competence • January 2000


The National Mental Health Association (NMHA) has launched 

a multi-year initiative to increase the organization’s cultural 

competence at the national, state and local levels. The NMHA 

Board of Directors convened a task force on diversity in 1998, which 

produced a Cultural Competency Planning Guide to assist Mental 

Health Associations (MHAs) throughout the 

country. 

to become culturally competent. For example, Asian Americans and 

Pacific Islanders are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population and will reach 12 million by the year 2000. In 2005, ethnic 

minorities will account for 47 percent of the nation’s population. 

Eighty-five percent of those entering the work force will be women, 

This effort is driven by the reality of rapidly changing demographics that require nonprofit groups to move aggressively to reflect the 

communities they serve. Organizations that fail 

to do so risk becoming ineffective. This means 

that boards, volunteers and staff should be representative of diverse groups in their communities. 

The NMHA task force determined that 

Mainstream America will 

ery shortly look quite different 

han it does now, providing the 

ajor impetus for organizations 

and systems to become 

culturally competent. 

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t

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people of color, and immigrants. Non-Hispanic whites, presently 75 percent of all Americans, will shrink to a bare majority by 2050. 

NMHA has adapted 14 guiding principles from the Substance Abuse and Mental 

Health Administration’s (SAMHSA) Center for 

Mental Health Services to provide a context 

for becoming more culturally competent. These 

principles guide our organizational goals and 

recommendations and also provide a framework for what to advocate for in a culturally 

cultural competence more inclusively reflects competent service system.

the goals of the organization than does diversity. NMHA’s statement 

of cultural competence includes race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, social groups and disabilities. As the organization moves 

toward its goal of cultural competence, NMHA’s values demand that 

consumers be significantly represented on boards, staff, and in volunteer pools of MHAs, making real the phrase “nothing about us without us.”

 Diversity is embedded in the goal of cultural competence, but is 

just one component of it. Accepting and understanding differences in 

customs and patterns of thinking in other cultures are tangible ways 

in which diversity is valued. NMHA and its affiliates are working 

toward becoming a system that responds to the unique needs of populations whose cultures are different from that which is currently “dominant” or mainstream America. 

Mainstream America will very shortly look quite different than it 

does now, providing the major impetus for organizations and systems 

Over the next three years, NMHA will provide regular trainings 

on cultural competence to assist MHA’s to prepare them for this new 

requirement in the reaffiliation process beginning in 2002. In addition, its Consumer Supporter Technical Assistance Center has put out 

a call for proposals on cultural competence. This involves making 

cultural competency more representative of the local or regional community. Proposals that address cultural competence with the mental 

health service delivery system will also be accepted. Each grant recipient will become a study site that will provide other organizations and 

service providers with models for replication and information about 

what can be learned and tested. 

Judy Leaver and Catherine Huynh work within the National Mental Health Association’s Consumer Supporter Technical Assistance Center. 

For a copy of the Request for Proposals, contact the Consumer Supporter TA Center at (800) 969-6642, or visit NMHA’s Web site http:// 

www.nmha.org/ncstac. 

Office of Minority Health Resource Center U.S. Department of Health and Human Services